


too little, too late

by the bloodsucking brady bunch (Ejunkiet)



Series: deviance from an absolute [4]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: And post-season finale, F/M, Pre-Season Finale, The Originals season 5 - somewhat rewrite of the canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ejunkiet/pseuds/the%20bloodsucking%20brady%20bunch
Summary: In another life, Klaus Mikaelson extends an invitation to Caroline Forbes to join him in New Orleans.It takes her fifteen years to accept his offer.--“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I would have liked to have kept my promise.”





	1. Part one

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet, and may get a sequel that completely ignores whatever the holy hell is going to happen in the series finale tomorrow. 
> 
> I'm taking Klaroline prompts on tumblr ! The prompt for this was, 'don't apologise if you don't mean it'.

In another life, Klaus Mikaelson extends an invitation to Caroline Forbes to join him in New Orleans.

It takes her fifteen years to accept his offer.

The city of New Orleans is as beautiful as he’d once described it. She’s here in the thick of it, the heat of him close against her side, fingertips brushing against her hip as he leads her down a series of crooked alleyways until they reach Bourbon street, and it shouldn’t have taken this long, she thinks.

They’re neck deep in the throng of people, music and colour when she looks at Klaus, really looks, and realises that he’s - changed. It’s subtle, a shift that would be imperceptible to anyone who hadn’t taken the time to know him, really know him; a realignment.

He doesn’t seem to recognise it himself, and maybe that’s for the best. Klaus has a bad habit of driving anything good into ruin.

She glances up and finds him watching her. His eyes are soft, and she wonders if this is what he meant by having everything he wanted, all at once. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I would have liked to have kept my promise.”

Don’t apologise if you don’t mean it, she wants to say, but she can’t quite get the words out: her throat is thick, and her eyes are burning, and suddenly it’s all too much. She can’t do this. She breaks away from him, pushing through the crowds of the French Quarter until she can find enough space to breathe.

It doesn’t take long for him to catch up to her, hands on her wrists, spinning her around until they’re face to face, scant millimeters of space between them, breath a warm rush against her cheek.

“Caroline.”

She won’t look at him. Warm hands reach out to cup her face, fingers trailing through her hair, angling her face up until she meets his gaze. His voice is a low murmur that breaks as he says her name again, “ _Caroline_.”

“It wasn’t meant to end like this.” The anger flares up, sharp and potent, a burning brand inside her chest. She wraps her hands around his wrists and twists, wrenching until he has no choice but to let go, but he still steps in closer, until the space between them is gone, and all she can see, smell,  _taste_ , is him.

She closes her eyes and breathes him in.

She shoves him. Shoves him again, until he stumbles backwards, but still, he keeps coming. She curls her fingers in the lapels of his jacket, and he whispers her name, and then she’s pulling him in as well.

They meet in the middle, her fingers in his hair, his mouth hot on hers, and the world fades away around them.


	2. Part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I expect you to live,” he murmurs into the back of her neck, lips brushing against her skin. “Live and love, until the world around you has changed so much, you can barely recognise it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another drabble prompt, "kiss... in grief". Find me at my tumblr (ejunkiet)!

The second time is nothing like the first.   
  
They have similar beginnings. Klaus chases her mouth with his own, hands roaming, touching her face, her jaw, cupping her neck as he deepens the kiss. His hands are everywhere, and so are hers, frantic and fumbling, grasping at his neck, his hair - an accumulation of the years they’ve spent apart.   
  
This could ruin her, she can recognise that - but here, in this moment, she can’t bring herself to care.   
  
They stumble through the city with clumsy bursts of preternatural speed until they make it to the Mikaelson compound, stone and earth marked by the centuries they’d shared within these walls. It’s blessedly empty due to today’s festivities and a devilish smile twists his lips as Klaus takes her hand and leads her up to the second floor, palms dusty and warm, alive.    
  
Inside, however, things change. He’s slow, careful, reverent. He loves her, she realises, and with a stab of guilt, she realises she loves him too.   
  
–   
  
They spend the small hours of the afternoon together, limbs entangled within the sheets, the warmth of the sun on their faces.   
  
His mouth against her shoulder, Klaus traces strange patterns into her skin with idle fingers, old runes and shapes she can recognise from her time with Bonnie. “Old charms,” he answers when she asks, lips curled into a smile, “for luck; for wealth.”    
  
He leans in to steal another kiss, long and slow. His eyes are glittering when he pulls back, flickering across her features as if he’s trying to commit them to memory. It’s intimate, and too much of a reminder of their current situation, so she prompts him again.   
  
“Anything else?”   
  
He grins and slides a hand along her arm, circling her wrist. “Good health,” he murmurs into her pulse point, and she chokes on a laugh, her heart clenching within her chest.   
  
She takes his hands and presses kisses into his palms. He buries his face into her hair, limbs curling around hers, and breathes in deep, until all she can feel is the weight of him, his heat surrounding her, and it’s perfect.   
  
“I expect you to live,” he murmurs into the back of her neck, lips brushing against her skin. “Live and love, until the world around you has changed so much, you can barely recognise it.”   
  
She shifts until she’s facing him, and he’s golden in the late afternoon sun. His eyes are soft, so soft; she can see centuries in the crinkle of his smile, reminders of the years he’s walked this earth.   
  
This is his good bye, she realises.   
  
Her throat is thick and she can barely speak. “I won’t forget you.”   
  
He doesn’t say anything, just curls his arm tighter around her waist, pulling her in closer until she's tucked against the crook of his neck. It’s warm and comfortable, and slowly but surely, she’s lulled into sleep, the trace of his fingers soft against her skin.   
  
Later, she wakes to the press of his lips against her temple; when she opens her eyes, he is gone.   
  
–   
  
In the end, he dies. She can’t begrudge him his choice: she’d do the same, if given the option to sacrifice herself for the lives of her daughters.   
  
Caroline doesn’t leave her room for a week. When she does, it’s with a packed suitcase and a simple itinerary: Paris, then Rome. Tokyo.


	3. epilogue: klaus mikaelson, a tragedy in five parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tragedy of Klaus Mikaelson and the women who've loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final Tumblr fic, written after the finale.

_ I love you, _ says the woman that raised him. She cups his cheeks and kisses him gently before placing a sparrow around his neck.  _ Always and forever. _

Forever. He wears the pendant as a reminder: of the love of family, of the lengths he’d go to find out what it truly means to be free. When the item itself is little more than a symbol, he passes it onto his only son, the man he made in his image. 

Centuries later, that sparrow serves a different purpose: a reminder of the lengths his blood would go to deny him his birthright, and the leather cord creaks in his palm as he grips it, contemplates throwing it away, having done with it and all that it represents.

In the end, he buries it, and with it the remains of his former life. It symbolises the start of something new.

\--

_ I miss you, _ he says to the woman who is braver than she knows, who’s suffered more in the time she has known him than she'd ever had the right to. It's been centuries since he's felt this loss, centuries since he's allowed himself to feel it, and time has not softened the blow.  _ I'm sorry. _

_ I know, _ a version of her replies when he's chained far below the earth and delirious from starvation and anger.  _ I know _ , she whispers again, fingers tangled in the unkempt locks of his hair, and he misses her with an ache that is greater than the thirst, that shatters him into more pieces than he thinks can ever be recovered.

\--

_ I don't know how I'm going to do this without you, _ he says to the mother of his child, except it's too little, too late. He clears away the fast growing vines that have twined around the carved stone that marks her grave, and clenches his teeth against the fracture in his chest. He’s shattering again, into more broken pieces that can never be replaced.  _ You deserved more, little wolf. _

The cold stone bearing her name does not answer.

\--

_ I've always loved you, _ he doesn't say to the woman who has loved and lost in the years since they were together, and she leans into him, breathes in him, and it's enough. She hasn't waited for him, and he admires that about her - her strength, her independence, her beauty. 

She kisses him, and it's slow, chaste. She holds his gaze, and she  _ knows _ , then. She's probably always known. 

_ I won't forget you _ , she doesn't say and walks away.

\--

_ You're everything I am and more, _ he says to his daughter, his lifeblood, his family. It's a tragedy and it's a relief; and an end, finally, to this endless drag of years. He can recognise himself for the first time in centuries.  _ I love you, always and forever. _

He doesn't hesitate when he drives the white oak stake into the heart of his brother, doesn't flinch as the wood splinters when it drives into his own. There’s pain, but then there's relief.  _ Finally _ .

There's nothing more to be said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a sequel, post-originals finale fic in the works that I'm currently half-way through, so I can promise you, there is a resolution to all this angst. Happy holidays, KC fandom.


End file.
